Technical SEO – What Web Designers Leave Out

What Web Designers Leave Out

Website Audits

One of the services I offer is website audits. A website audit looks at several key areas of a site and grades the website. I review on-page SEO optimization, off-page backlinks, social, performance, security and more. A higher grade results in a better experience for your users and improved ranking and visibility by search engines. Something that I see all too much is a website that has a good appearance but is lacking in the important technical SEO optimizations that are critical in ranking a website. Google has made a lot of changes to their algorithm in recent years that have made it more difficult for websites to rank well. Not utilizing on-page aspects of SEO optimization is like leaving money on the table. SEO is an essential part of a website's success, and neglecting it can lead to decreased traffic and lower rankings. A web designer who is not familiar with SEO can create a website that is difficult to find and rank, and may even result in a loss of business. The website might look great and be easy to use but without solid technical SEO it will never be as good as it could be if the SEO was correct.  If your website doesn't have strong technical SEO, it will likely not rank as well in search engines as it could. This could lead to a loss of business and customers. So why do web design firms leave out or ignore important SEO components? Is it because they only focus on the design of the website? Maybe they just don't understand SEO. Whatever the case, you should be looking for a different web design company.

What Is Technical SEO?

In this post, we'll discuss what technical SEO is and why it's important for your website. We'll also show you how to make sure your site is optimized for search engines. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a process of improving the visibility and ranking of a website or web page in search engine results pages (SERPs). The goal is for a website or web page to appear at the top of results for specific keywords or phrases. Technical SEO is the process of optimizing your website for the search engine. This includes all the things that you can do to improve your website's search engine optimization. It includes things such as the title tag, the meta description, the keyword tags, and other things. Let's examine the pieces of technical SEO and how to implement them.

Title Tag

The title tag is the most important piece of technical SEO. It is the first thing that a user sees when they click on a link from another website. The title tag should be short and concise, but it should contain keyword phrases that are relevant to the page. There is almost an art to creating a great title tag. You need to explain what your page is about in 60 characters.

Meta Description

The meta description is the second piece of technical SEO. It is the description of the page that appears below the title tag. The meta description is what the search engine displays in its results page when someone searches for your page. You can use it to attract more clicks to your page.

Image Alt Tag

The image alt tag is used to describe the images that appear on your page. It helps the search engine to know what your page is about without having to see the image. In the event your image is not able to be displayed for any reason, the Alt text will be shown.

Page Hierarchy

Every page on your website should have an <h1> heading tag - and there should only be one. All too often I see multiple <h1> heading tags or no <h1> heading tag at all. That's a sure sign of poor technical SEO. When using more than one heading on a page it is important to use the correct hierarchy. Using the incorrect hierarchy level can affect SEO and could make using assistive technology, such as a screen reader, very cumbersome. Be sure to never skip heading levels. For example, the heading after an <h2> should never be an <h4>, <h5>, or <h6>. Follow the correct order.

Site Structure / Sitemap

How your website is structured is important. It's also important to make sure the search engines know the structure. That's where your sitemap comes in. A sitemap is a file that tells the search engines about all of your web pages. You should create a sitemap and upload it to your website. This will help your site to appear in the search engine results.

Linking

Inter linking is important for ease of navigation but it also plays a role in telling search engines how the content of your web pages should connect to each other.

Schema Code

Schema markup (schema.org) is a structured data vocabulary that helps search engines understand the info on your site in order to serve rich results. This markup will help search engines understand your content better by showing them the meaning and relationships behind your website's various content entities. Schema markup has become a hot topic for SEO because it lets you provide more details about your products and services.

Performance

How fast your web page loads and displays is an important metric when it comes to SEO. There are several websites you can use to test your site's performance. GTMetrix and WebPageTest are a couple I like.

Core Web Vitals

Core web vitals are a combination of several metrics designed to measure how users perceive the experience of interacting with a web page. In this update, Google wants to ensure that only sites that provide simple and seamless experience show up on the top of search engine result pages (SERPs) for specific search terms or keywords. Core web vitals are a subset of Google’s overall evaluation of Page Experience, a longstanding ranking signal. The metrics that define Core Web Vitals will change over time along with changes in a user’s expectation of web pages. The current set of metrics focus on three important aspects of the user experience, including load speed, interactivity and visual stability. I wrote an article about Google's Core Web Vitals where you can learn more.

Conclusion

Technical SEO is not an option. You need every advantage to be competitive in the online world and your website will never achieve its' full potential without solid on-page SEO. If you would like a free website audit you can get one on our Free Website Audit page. Wait…FREE? Yes, it’s really free. No strings attached or obligation on your part. Just an honest review of your website. I’ll look at 3 areas of your website: SEO, Performance &  Security, and User Experience.. You will receive a detailed report clearly explaining the results in PDF format and a few ideas on what you might do to improve.

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